Characteristics for Success

AAFP has many articles regarding EHR implementation in their Center for Health Information Technology (http://www.centerforhit.org).  The excerpt below offers a list of traits that successful offices and providers embody as they undertake EHR implementation:

Medical offices that have had successful electronic health record implementations have the following characteristics:

1. Excellent teamwork
2. Excellent communication skills
3. A spirit of adventure and continual improvement
4. The ability to handle adversity and bumps in the road well. 
5. Excellent problem solving skills
6. A willingness and flexibility for individuals to go outside their job descriptions in order to make things work. 

Family physicians who have had successful electronic health record implementations have the following characteristics:

1. An interest in how their entire practice works as well as parts of the practice that are inefficient and may be subject for improvement with an electronic record. 
2. A teamwork mentality and the ability to trust employees as well as delegate appropriately. 
3. An appreciation of the work involved in transitioning from paper charts to electronic charts and a willingness to perform this work. 
4. A willingness to change their work process from a paper-based system to a new work process that takes advantage of information technology.

These traits would apply, of course, to any successful organization in any endevour, but we at TriCounty may want to ramp up our strengths and attend to our weaknesses as we move into the hard work of the EHR implementation.